Dreams I

I haven't been able to remember my dreams for months. Almost a year. I just reread some of them and the symbolism is raging. There's something about an white alligator that has popped up more than once, along with scenes of murder or merriment. I know that I do dream, and that they are just as vivid as ever, but I wonder if my change in environment, friendships, prescriptions, and weed smoking has caused a fog. I’ve noticed something about my dreams from five years ago: themes of death, duality, getting lost, fighting, fucking, searching for something or someone. I’m never in one place for very long and my dreams constantly switch narratives.

I'll share the last dream I recorded on August 24 2024, and one from May 5 2021:

My sister went to a reptile show and adopted two king snakes and put them in a 25 gallon tank. I was upset. Dream change to me in a neighborhood that I lived in, some worker guys were putting up a huge iron fence at a neighbor’s house, they were kind and said that in their seismic measuring machine they found a huge empty space underneath our house. I told them I thought something was up, cause I had seen a huge crack in the ground behind our house. It turned out to be a huge cave. The workers said they would have helped if they could, but the foundations of our house were still holding strong. Dream change I was with some friends in a downtown square, I saw some of them eating grapes or something on a cocktail table outside a restaurant, I don’t think I stopped to chat. Dream change I was in the wilderness of a swamp, looking for alligators, and I found them. I kept narrating to myself what I was doing, I found a rickety old wooden gazebo and I took refuge in, observing the swamp and the alligators. I saw a regular large one, then another, both swimming just under the surface. Then an albino dwarf alligator swam up, it had bright scary red eyes and black outlining those eyes. It crawled its way up to the gazebo, and tried to bite me. I tried to record the event on my phone, while I climbed all over the structure to get out of the way of its jaws. It was terrifying. Dream change I was back downtown, I went into a metaphysical shop, and while we looked around I saw the store’s own leucistic dwarf crocodile/alligator, who I asked if I could pet. The shop owner said sure, just on his snout. There was a black sign above his little cat bed where he was laying, it said “only trans people and pansexuals allowed to pet” and I thought perfect I’m both. I did pet the lil guy and he closed his eyes and opened his mouth when I did. At some point Sarah FaceTimed me and showed me pictures of one of her snakes eating the other. I asked her, “you didn’t know that could happen?” Of course she didn’t, she doesn’t know anything about snakes. I was frustrated but I accepted the situation and left the metaphysical store. I can’t remember anything else.

-

I was at the campground from childhood. Mom was pregnant with twins and she gave birth to a leucistic dwarf crocodile and a loaf of cinnamon bread. J had gotten ripped. Dad was helping mom deliver the babies, a boy and a girl. J and a few other friends had been in a weird cult job thing where young Keanu Reeves was the leader. J almost shot Keanu when Keanu pulled out a gun, but J threw his own gun up in a gutter and went to sit at the table. Keanu laughed and shot at the gun but it backfired and shot him instead. Mom was worried that we wouldn't have something to present or a place to sit for the camp potluck , but we used the bread daughter for food and J and his friends held the camp spot at a wooden table. Someone had painted over the crocodile baby, but I removed the paint while he tried to bite me. He had an underbite. I asked if anyone had some little fish to feed him. J's circle of friends were fishing at the little pond and they gave me one. One of them also had cream cheese that we spread on the cinnamon bread daughter to serve. It was delicious.

Edit: My dreams are coming back, bits and pieces.

Groveling

"It is apparent that attention to detail, following instructions accurately, sound judgment and discretion, and creative/critical thinking/problem solving remain areas of opportunity."

Translation: You keep messing up and either you get better or you're outta here. Idiot. 

An email I received from my supervisor. X gave me a list of trainings to watch and report back on in August. 

"It is clear that you have the drive to do well. Enhancing your skills will help ensure continued success in this role."

Translation: You can do better, train yourself to do so or else. 

X wants me to do well, but can't hide exasperation. See below.

"I’m really unsure how this blew up like this…I typically [do a task] once we’re approved Jupiter…is everything okay? It would have been okay to just wait until I was able to respond and get us registered like we normally do…please, help me understand…"

Translation: You done fucked up again, are you really that dumb?

I don't know!! I tried to help. Evidently I didn't know I should have waited. And a few back and forth emails is hardly "blowing up."

I may be an idiot but I'm not stupid. Maybe I was better off as a zoo worker. I've been fired once before, for underperforming (a call center, I was expendable) so NOW that I am underperforming at an in person job, I've got nowhere to hide. If I lose this job I will hunt for another one. I really want to make it a full year at least.

I don't dream of labor!! But I have to labor or I'll die! I mean not really but I wont have the life I want to live. I want to be independent. I want to do it all on my own. I can't, it's impossible to go through life without help from others. I'm trying to maintain an attitude of gratitude but I can't stop thinking about ripping my head off, or having it ripped off of me. Some tragic or hilarious accident to make it all go away. 

YIKES!

This is how my brain spirals. I have a headache. Not enough water, or too much stress? 

-

When I am bored, my eyes start to cross and my body starts to droop. I have to constantly shift my weight, pinch my arms, or doodle to stay present, or write down what is being said to me as fast as I can and review it later. When I am really checked out, my writing becomes a garbled mess as I try to digest the vibrations in the air. 

My performance at work remains subpar. 

What do I need to do better? When I hear ‘improve critical thinking skills’ I don’t know how to measure improvement.

It makes me feel like I need to force myself to be better, but I don’t even know what that looks like in myself. “there remains opportunity to increase attention to detail and problem-solving skills”

Why do I feel like I’m going crazy?

What if this is all I can do? What if I don’t get better? Answer: I get fired or quit.

Am I clinging to this job because I feel like this is the best option? 10 minute drive from my place. Nice coworkers. Retirement and benefits. Access to a wealth of knowledge. 

Why does my heart think it's being hunted for sport?

Can you make sense of this?

I got a pep talk from one of my coworkers. They said to slow down, take a breath, clear your mind, and try again. Keep moving forward, let go of the past. Commit to improvement.

It feels very much easier said than done, but it's true. 

Ughhhhhhh I want a QUICK fix! I don't like that I have to take my time while others go fast! 

I still can't accept the fact that I need help. In work, in social life, in my personal life. From an outside perspective, I'm doing just fine. But in my brain there are 50 tabs open and I can't find which one is playing music. 

Previously on this blog...

"I may be an idiot but I'm not stupid. Maybe I was better off as a zoo worker. I've been fired once before, for underperforming....so NOW that I am underperforming at an in person job, I've got nowhere to hide. If I lose this job I will hunt for another one. I really want to make it a full year at least."

Guess who's up for round 2 of required how-to-be-better-at-your-fucking-job courses! This guy ✧ദ്ദി( ˶^ᗜ^˶ )

I'm trying to approach it with a go-getter attitude. I am taking the courses, I am taking notes, I am writing down everything that I do. What is the root cause of my mistakes?

Problem - Root - Solution

Forgot again - Lack of sleep, oui'd - Take better care of myself

Sending emails too fast - Not reading all the way through - Read twice, send once

Missed a required event - Too hungry and overstimulated to socialize - Disclose my energy levels

Input the wrong start date after I was told 5 minutes before - Could not remember - Triple check the process

Took too long to count names - Wanted to ensure efficiency, overwhelmed from socialization - Ask explicitly how a request needs to be done, and by when

Didn't know the answer to questions - Didn't read up on policy/no background knowledge - Ask for help, write down the precedent

I think I have the biggest issue with open ended tasks and questions. When I went in for my check-in, X asked what goes through my brain when I make decisions, and how X and the others can help me be better. I still don't know what to ask for. I really don't know what would make me change to fit their needs. I know what I should be doing, most of the time, but my memory still has its fits. 

I'm getting assessed for ADHD soon. I can't afford an Autism assessment. Everything is behind a goddamn paywall in this country. I hate how money-centered it is, when we should be people centered. I try to make my personal circle....

Just caught myself deflecting and putting my problems onto the world at large. I need to start with ME. But god I want to have something to shake a stick at!

Edit: The ADHD assessment did not give me peace. In fact, I shut down at the clinic and left before we were done with the questions. I'm not a big fan of "tell me your trauma, now take these pills. We'll see you in a month." Personal issue I suppose. When I dropped my mask, I was treated like a scared child. Being asked why I couldn't look someone in the eye. Why couldn't I behave like a normal person?

Horny on Main

I don't know if I'll ever be horny on main. It's too risky. I have a job in the public sector. I have family members that would faint. Most of my friends would probably say 'hell yea!' I recently attended a kink party in the mountains of Appalachia with my tits out, studded with brass pasties cast into a hard nipple. I danced and sweated and shook my flesh in a way most pleasing to the songs of our people and gogo dancers who were doing the most. I post my nudes to a website I won't tell you about. It takes the edge off. I really, really like posting them. I spent too much time hating on my flesh suit and came out on the other side joyous and free. You bet your ass I'm showing mine! 

I am often left to daydream more than practice my art of sluttery. Too many of my friends, with whom I have a benefits package, are busy making the world a better place to engage in copulation, I could turn to the internet, find hot singles near me, but that's exhausting and unfulfilling. I like to make love to people whom I love! Is that too much to ask? 

From a young age I was told to cover up. Modest is hottest. If I had an inch of skin out, I felt shame for existing. My very flesh was not to be seen. I wasn't to be seen. So I made myself invisible. That's what they seemed to want. It was easy to travel through the world with my clear form. I could pass through people, learn from them, and leave them. Even now the thought of being the center of attention sends a chill down my spine and a pit in my stomach. 

But it also excites me.

Embarrassment without fear of judgement is a new thing I have discovered in kink. It's liberating! It feels good to be read in the face. Really seen, at my most vulnerable. Exposing all the soft flesh hiding lengths of intestines and blood and bile underneath. I love the colors of a bruise delivered lovingly, begged for desperately. Purple, yellow, blue, green. Met with my white and brown tortilla skin, dotted with freckles that I used to despise. What's another mark left on me? Another song to add to the hymnal of my body. 

neurodivergence

 WHy cant i abe better why cant i be better why cant u be better why cant u be better nwy hcant i be better why cant i be better why cant i be better why cant i be better whys cant iu bea betewr bwhy cant u be nkpjjf leh cans ti be betwtr ashey cani be better bwy beetter

supervisor told me to take critical thinking skills courses, time management courses, and organizational skills courses

all this shit I know already

Why can't I be better?

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Bodily Sensations

A list of sensations my flesh suit provides that I find interesting:

- When lifting my shoulders up and dropping them, I feel a tingling in my ring and pinky fingers

- When resting on my knees for five minutes or more, upon standing my legs start to sparkle like TV static and my muscles contract spastically 

- When staring at any solid color, I can see tiny floating sparkles that appear transparent, with flecks of darting greens and magentas

- When falling asleep in pitch darkness, the color blue engulfs my vision in waves

- When thinking about sex, I feel my nether region pulse against my briefs and salivate (this is new to me)

- When opening my jaw, the left side makes a popping noise (residual effects from a Herbst appliance, eleven years passed)

- When being beaten (consensually) I laugh. Sometimes I cry but in a good way

- When straightening my posture, I can hear the air bubbles in the synovial fluid popping in my neck and spine

- When listening to music with deeper meaning, I can feel a wave of electricity over my skin nudging all the hair it holds

- When I stand to wash my hands, I start off in a weird pose, one leg, slanted, stretched, then I think, "Why am I standing this way?" and return to an ergonomical stance

- When standing up after long periods of sitting, my legs stretch like a cat instinctively

- When going up the stairs, I can hear my left knee crinkle and pop, and sometimes feel a sharp pain that evaporates as quickly as it came

- When doing yoga, I queef. I also feel a soreness around my tailbone when in extended child's pose

- When I wore heels two days in a row, my right foot twinged and I now feel pain in my center, ring and pinky toe

This will probably be edited as I realize more sensations.

Cicada War

I think war happens because the general populous is kind of stupid. And the people who like war want to keep it that way. Why is peace the last thing on certain politicians’ minds? Is there such a lack of empathy and awareness in the government that they can only form tunnel vision on destroying others and making profit? 

We can vote them out! 

or y'know. kill them.

I am also kind of stupid. Ignorant is a better word, maybe. I am not a politician. I did not study the ways of those in power, I just live in the world they’ve created. I have always been sensitive, and when I see people obeying companies that do not care if they live or die just to put food on the table, I can’t fathom it. I have always felt a deeper connection to the planet, it’s the only one we have to live on and it is beautiful! Why are there people who are hellbent on destroying it? We have finite resources! We the People don’t have to follow orders if they are wrong. Educating people on wrong vs right seems to be a hot topic…what happened to basic empathy? Raising children to be nurturing and not little terrors? 

It’s true some people are just built different. The people who think war is bad, generally, want to make the world a better place. I feel very lucky that my upbringing did not turn me into a psychopath (still tbd). The human spirit is indominable. I wish I could see a day where regardless of our differences, we all eat, shit, fuck, and die together and accept those facts. If humans could just be a bit more like cicadas.

Drowning

I've always thought about what it'd be like to drown. Each instance that I have of swallowing water and sinking have been terrifying to say the least. I remember dropping down into the deep end of the pool, holding onto the bottom of the ladder to get out. I held my breath until my lungs started burning, and when I couldn't hold it anymore I let the bubbles rush out of me, propelling me upward. I remember swimming in the river, high in the mountains so the water was clear. I stuffed rocks into my swim suit so I could look at the fish for longer with my snorkel and mask. I remember, at a different spot in that same mountain river, I tried to help a child not that much younger than me out of a current in the deep part of the stream pool. He climbed onto my back and was pushing me down, and I tried to scream "get off!" as I was thrashing trying to stay afloat. An adult came to both our rescues, and I clung to the side of a kayak catching my breath. I would've liked to be a mermaid. I wanted to be a good mermaid that healed people instead of drowning them. Eventually I got scared of murky water, not being able to see what lies below triggered something in me. 

Friends & Hobbies

I think of my friends who are better than me. The ones who write better, the ones who draw better, the ones who have hobbies that are exciting, the ones who have spouses and are content with each other, the ones who fuck with wild abandon, the ones who are quiet and collected, the ones who aren't afraid to let their freak flag fly. I want to be like them all. I decided some years ago that I only want to be surrounded by people who I love, and have goals of making their community a better place. People who inspire me and others around them. Nerds. Goofballs. Rockstars. Poets. Gardeners. Authors. Sluts. Autists. I think about them and I compare myself to them. If I could have an ounce of their glory, maybe, just maybe I'll learn to be like them. I'm a collection of all the people I have met, as you and I know. I'd rather bask in the light of someone else's glow than to nurture my own. But I'm not a reptile, I am warm blooded. I need to take care of myself and leave the basking to Curly. What's that thing about a fig tree and some lady named Sylvia? Maybe I'm too obsessed with what others have that I ignore my own skills and talents just to live vicariously through my friends. But I'm not always like this! I am a selfish and self centered person and think I'm hot shit somedays. Then I come back down where I should be (where I think I should be) and mull about, waiting for inspiration to strike me. I like having my friends near me while I journal, draw, paint, read, write, sew, wire, paper craft, swim, hike, eat, cook, drink, smoke, so on and so forth. Parallel play or body doubling can help, but then I feel this little sense of pride that wants to make the project I'm working on even greater, but perfectionism is a dagger that ain't trying to be a letter opener. 

Critterland

 We had to say goodbye to one of our family cats who was known by many names. 

Sonny. Diablo. Scary Kitty. Fuzzy Cat. Asshole. Rascal. 

Like many of our critters, we found him in the woods, crying pitifully. He followed my dad and my sister home on her twelfth birthday, and stayed with us ever since. He lived up to all of his names before he got fixed; he was a terror! He attacked us any time we were walking down our own driveway, attack our other cats and dogs and chickens and ducks, and terrorized the local bird and mole population. But he chilled out significantly after the snip. He became cuddly, and goofy. We joked that this was his first life as a cat, just beginning to figure everything out. He was clumsy,  playful, had the softest fur and the sweetest mew. 

He was around twelve and had an infection from tooth removal that refused to accept treatment. He was hurting bad. He couldn't clean himself, he was lethargic, he didn't play. He couldn't lick the air when we scratched the middle of his back like he used to. He couldn't drink water from the sink by letting it pour over his head and onto his whiskers. He couldn't eat. 

I got to say goodbye to him the night before the vet appointment. He was quiet, loafed up on the sofa next to my dad, his favorite person. He managed a small purr as we cried for him and pet him.  I told him I'd see him again, kissed his soft forehead, and left. I couldn't be there with him, but dad, mom, and my sister were. He's buried on our country home along with our other animals that passed on to critterland. 

It's hard, but it's what happens to us all eventually. 

Rambles III

I repeat myself a lot. I contradict myself often. I change my mind often. I go back on my word, or I don't fulfil it at all. I don’t know who I am just yet. I am still growing. My hormones have me acting like a raging angsty horny scared teenage boy. I try to tell myself, ignore the body, hear the inner voice. I am loving my body, but I am not loving the world I live in. I cannot control what others see when they look at me. My hope is that I confuse them, at least. If I had a nickel for every time a child came up to me and asked "are you a boy or a girl, cause I can't tell." I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's great that it's happened twice. 

I wish I could take my chest lumps off cause sometimes they don't go with an outfit. If I ever get them chopped I want to make a mold of them first so I can use them to give certain outfits a little oomph. Also I think they are quite nice. I've thought of this since I was going through Puberty 1. Often I would wish to have breast cancer so I wouldn't disappoint my parents too much for deciding to go under the knife. That may be a bit fucked up, and breast cancer does run in my family, so who knows what the future holds. Maybe I'll get lucky. 

I oscillate between body modifications and remaining intact. Both options have their appeal. I can always add on, but once something is taken off, I'm hard pressed to get it back. Like my innocence. God, I'll catch myself being moody and dark again. Soon I'm gonna start wearing Twenty One Pilots t-shirts and chokers with black nail polish again. I repeat myself a lot.